


Spilled Paint

by TwistedViolets



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Luther gets a hobby; featuring flashbacks, Painting, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27067801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedViolets/pseuds/TwistedViolets
Summary: At Klaus’s suggestion Luther picks up painting as a hobby; it brings up some unsavory memories from his past.Or.Luther is guilty of the fond memories he has of his father. (Survivors Guilt? Just a little?)
Kudos: 28





	Spilled Paint

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So I’ve been going through writers block, although I’ve written a few works under different names in different fandoms. In general I’ve been just feeling uninspired :(
> 
> Just a little thing I managed to write at two in the morning when I snagged a bit of inspiration. Please forgive any typos and such as I don’t really have the time at the moment to fix any mistakes.
> 
> On another note, this story might first seem like it might be leading to LutherXReginald or something but it wasn’t supposed to. I tried my best to explain Luther’s guilt as best as I could, in a way that made it out to be as it is (toxic, etc.)
> 
> Other than that feel free to read if you wish. :)

A hobby, he muttered almost hopefully underneath his breath as his shirt constricted around him. Each breath he took he felt it pull, felt the way it threatened to tear apart and expose his body for Klaus's wandering eyes.

He didn't have the heart to tell Allison that this shirt wasn't his size. He didn't want to ruin the kind gesture that she had shown him.

"Yeah, a hobby. Ever hear of one Luther?" Klaus mutters sarcastically. Sounding more and more like Diego every time he opened his mouth. Condescending, like he's better than everyone that breathes the same air as him. "You need something to pass the time. You can't just sit here and feel sorry for yourself forever."

"I know," he scratched his neck, the motion causing a little ripping noise, so tiny that he hopes Klaus didn't hear it. He doesn't feel like getting a lecture nor hearing Klaus's crude remarks. Although they aren't ever meant to be crude or cruel.

Klaus isn't like that.

Luther is just...fucking sensitive and he's ashamed of that fact. Always had been, although he wasn't ashamed of the crying.

"There's gotta be something you like to do," Klaus gestured wildly to the house around them. "You know, other than stewing in the memories of our childhood home. Not very good memories-" Klaus started than stopped, tilted his head for a moment before almost chuckling. "I guess they were good memories for you, weren't they?"

"Klaus-I-" 

"No, no." Klaus held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not here to judge. Not everyone handles everything the same."

"Klaus-" he starts again, but Klaus just laughs it off. The sound of a car pulling up to the curb is barely audible, but just enough that Klaus peeks out to the window. Diego gestures for Klaus to hurry up. "I'm serious though, Luther. Find something to do. It can't be healthy for you in here, staring at these walls all the time." Klaus gave an excited wave as he stepped out of the house, the door closing behind him with a dull thud.

Maybe Klaus was right.

Maybe he needed a hobby, something to fill his time with other than stewing in the silence and muddling over every little thing he could think of. Allison's smile as she held Claire once again, her lips pressed gently against her daughter's head.

And the all-knowing look she gave once she noticed he was staring. She knew he knew that she no longer needed him the way he needed her.

"Well," he sipped on his coffee, the cold liquid dripped down his throat. "What's next?"

...

_He always thought there was some bigger reason his father hated the things he hated. Like maybe coffee was poison or candy did rot your teeth. But he learned fairly quickly that there wasn't any real rhyme or reason besides the fact that he just didn't like them._

_It was just that simple._

_Just like the fact that his father hated children with the burning passion of a thousand suns. He never quite understood where that hatred came from. After all, his father certainly didn't ever explain the matter in full detail or any detail at all but did he like to spout that line._

_"I hate children," all day, every day, and at some point, it had been ingrained in his brain. That phrase, like his father was saying it to him, whispering it in his ears._

_”I hate you," it felt like his father was telling him with every breath he took and he hated it. He hated feeling like a failure, like nothing he could ever do would make his father love him._

_So he tried harder and harder until all he knew was how to make his father proud. It was all he cared about, those little passing signs of praise became his oxygen and each little word became his need._

_He needed to be praised._

_He needed to be Number One._

_Sometimes he got so lost in it that he couldn't see anything but that._

_..._

He dug a bunch of old painting supplies out of the attic. A few dusty canvases, a few paintbrushes, and a whole lot of chunky paint that he had to toss.

He didn't know where to start when he finally got everything in place. The tarp on the floor, the new paint splayed out in the palette, the brush idly waiting in his hands, sometimes creaking when he adjusted it.

"Hm," he hummed, peering over to the painting of them, the umbrella academy, their father's greatest work. And he began, without a plan, letting his mind paint the picture along the way.

...

_His father was never an affectionate man. His father probably didn't even understand the concept of affection beside a textbook definition. Because that's all the man was, brains, so much businessman that sometimes it was hard to look at him in the face and still think 'I love you.'_

_Which granted, was never something his father asked for. He probably didn't even know Luther ever thought that strange foreign phrase but he did._

_Sometimes._

_Only after Grace had introduced the concept to them. Before she existed, love had been a completely shut off-topic, never fully touched beside the practical side of it. Never the messy side that crumpled your heart into pieces._

...

When he found himself ready for a break, he set the paintbrush aside and wipe off a bunch of brown paint onto his pants. They were already messy, gross, and tearing at the seams so he could hardly bring himself to care for them.

The painting wasn't anything special. 

He could tell that there was skin, an outstretched hand reaching for something, an open palm landing on a fleshy line. He tilted his head, wondered for a moment as if he really couldn't tell what he had drawn.

And maybe deep down he didn't. It was just his subconscious that had conquered up such an image but he couldn't fight it forever. Couldn't pretend that it wasn't real.

It was a hand outreached to leave fluttering touches across a small thigh. The mere thought sends goosebumps down his spine. 

He wishes he didn't understand where the image came from. He wishes he could lie and say he didn't understand how strange it was.

...

_He wanted praise. He craved it. Like a dog, sometimes he heard his siblings mutter underneath their breaths, and sometimes he agreed. He was a loyal pup, he knew it, and he couldn't bring himself to hate it._

_To hate the good life he had. Praise, and looks of softness that not often were ever shared with anyone else._

_He was special and he liked that._

_Except, somehow he missed the fact that not everything that makes you feel good, is good._

_When he sat next to his father, his heart bursting out with hot red happiness. A feeling of pure love and affection as he receives the praise he's desired for so long, it happens._

_A hand slides over his knee, gripping softly. And Luther, he doesn't he notice. He doesn't even care._

_He smiles all the same, as if the hand was never there in the first place._

_..._

He wonders if they'll know what it is. If he showed Allison or Klaus. He wonders if they'll suspect something or if they'll look at it blankly. 

He wonders if he should just throw it away but something nags at the back of his head. A simple need to keep painting, to complete it.

"Do not start something you have no intentions of finishing, Number One." his father's voice rings out in his head, and with that, he picks up the paintbrush again.

...

_His father never half-assed things. Never in all his years of life did he ever see his father start something and not do it justice to his fullest potential._

_He should have known this was the same. That touch was just the start of many, many more to come. No matter how many times his father touched his knee or slid a hand over his shoulder, gave him that small little thing he called a smile._

_It never made him feel weird, like something was wrong because there wasn't. Everything was normal, perfectly normal family interactions, at least as far as he knew. And somehow, he found himself so incredibly excited about the whole thing._

_He could remember himself practicing bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for the next sign of praise and affection. An affection that he had been forced to live without for so long that he practically craved it with each beat of his heart._

_He wanted to be hugged and held tightly, a hand rubbing through his hair in a praising motion. He never got that full experience, but he did get pulled in often, a hand on his shoulder, he even got a lot of fingers ran through his hair, at least before he grew taller than his father._

_He never looked at his siblings. Never thought how much they were going through, alone, without the needed affection he thrived off. He was selfish, he knows that now, but can you blame him for being a kid?_

_He blames himself all the time. There were so many more people that deserved their father's love yet Luther selfishly hogged it all for himself._

...

As awful as that is, he doesn't regret it. Although he knows now, better, that his father never really cared about him. But it's the mere fact of the possibility that he knows he tore away from his siblings.

Things would be so different, had they felt loved. Had Vanya been held, pulled into a circle of love and affection instead of tossed aside, cut away from any hope of it. Klaus would have gotten all the love he needed, would have soothed that irrational craving of his that forces him to jump from person to person, never gaining that filling warmth he missed out on.

Luther knows there's so much more but he tries not to think about it.

He sits the painting up on the couch, as he steps back. He doesn't quite know what to do with himself now but he thinks he doesn't deserve it. This longing that places itself in his heart, the want to forgive his father, the want to be upset at his passing.

The want to mourn despite the irrationally of such a statement.

He knows his father doesn't deserve it so he doesn't. He ignores the nagging voice in the back of his mind as he tears the painting up, shredding in, breaking the canvas as if it was nothing.

He'll go back to pretending, although he was never a very good actor to begin with.


End file.
